You have social share tools, automated share tools, SEO Tools, Analytic tools, and right now I’m starting to sound like Bubba from Forest Gump.

But I digress.

We’re told that these tools are a way for us to work smart because they alleviate a lot of time and give us clues on what to look for to improve our marketing strategies. The most useful ones are the paid tools.

Yes, there are free ones, but they have their limitations. The paid tools are just more powerful and give you more options.The problem that a lot of bloggers don’t have the tools and REALLY, at the initial stage, we can’t afford to buy them.

It’s usually us!

Yes, we can brag about the tools we use, but most of us aren’t getting the best use out of them.

How many of you are using automated social share tools but yet aren’t getting the traffic you want?

Be honest!

Have you ever ran into the bloggers who rarely use tools but yet they’re killing it in the online marketing scene?

And you wonder how is this possible?

Well, it’s really not about the tools itself. It’s really about what you focus on.If you’re focusing on the wrong things, then obviously you won’t get the results you want.There are some areas you want to be your top priority while you’re using these tools, and I’m going to share them with you.

Statistics on Blogging Online Tools

28% of marketers have reduced their advertising budget to fund more digital marketing (Source: CMO Council)

Content marketing in 2015 generates 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing but costs 62% less. (Source: Hubspot)

50% of companies are using digital marketing, but they don’t have a plan! (Source: Smart Insights)

Only 9% strongly believe that their digital marketing is working (Source: neilpatel.com )

By 2019, 80% of worlds’ internet traffic will be video (Source: Cisco)

3 million advertisers now use Facebook to reach their customers (Source: Adweek)

Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than those without (Source: Buffer)

These are some stats on digital marketing using social media and other online tools. Although these online tools can help exponentially grow your online traffic and conversions, they’re just there to help you pervade what you already started. The problem is that most of you haven’t started with a great foundation to work from which is why many have a constant failure rate and keep overlooking the reasons why. And I bet you’re wondering what to focus on to really get the best out of online tools.

It’s only two important elements you want to work from.

– Let your target audience know who you are

– Let your target audience know what you specifically do.

That’s it!

You want to build a reputation based on your personality, character, and how you can help solve specific problems for your audience.This is what’s going to help make you stand out from the rest who are promoting the same product and services as you do. You can start off with an “About Me” page which details who you are and what you specifically focus on with your business.

One thing you don’t want to do is be generic. Many bloggers tend to get confused on being specific with being generic.

For example, it’s generic to say that “You help people build a business from home”.

Why?

Because we live in the internet age, and people are a lot clever and will do a search on specifically for their needs.

The search for your blog gets less “watered down” and you specifically attract people who fall under this category.

In the post The Importance Of Branding , I go into a little more detail about the importance and benefits of building your online reputation when you have little time to do so.

Now, Let’s get started with some effective techniques to increase your blog traffic without spending a single penny on advertising or on any tools!

Of course, your main focus will be on people, but how can you engage them?

How many times have you used online tools where you’re able to maximize online promotion but yet barely get any traffic to your site or get any clicks on your affiliate links?

Even if you tried to target a specific market of people, for some apparent reason you’re not able to get the responses you want. The market of people just tends to ignore you and more or less just don’t want to buy anything from you even though they may “know of you.”

Now on the flip side, how many of you personally know of people, acknowledge them, but for some apparent reason, you don’t buy anything from them?

So, in this case, you haven’t built a strong enough connection with your target market.

So, how can you change this?

There are quite a few ways of doing it, but using online tools for the sake of promoting your products and/or services isn’t going to do it.

It always starts with being of value to others which are through outreach, building trust and branding yourself.

You want to be “everywhere” your niche target market is and you can make this possible even if you have very little time to do so. So, let’s go through some of the ways which will increase your blog traffic without spending a dime of Online Tools.

Increase Blog Your Traffic Without Spending A Penny On Online Tools And Softwares

1. Commenting on Blogs

One way I boosted my traffic was through blog commenting.

Yes, it can be a tedious task, but it doesn’t have to be an arduous strategy if you’re smart about it.

But first let’s look at 4 benefits of blog commenting:

Leaving comments on other blog is great for networking

Commenting on a regular basis is a great personal branding practice

Helps to build a loyal following of highly targeted traffic

Genuine comments can help drive traffic to your blog

So what type of blogs should you be looking to comment on?

You want to find blogs that are related to your’s niche.

Blog posts that have a lot of shares (I recommend at least 50 shares)- Use Buzzsumo to learn about most shared content in your niche.

Blog posts that have at least 10 or more genuine comments on them

So how can you find the blogs?

I’ll make it easy on you by sharing a list of blogging communities that I’m a part of that will steer you in the right direction of finding great blogs as well as genuine people!

kingged.com

Growthhackers.com

Inbound.org

Blokube.com

Bizsugar.com

Out of all of them, kingged.com is my top referral site that drives traffic to my blog. You’ll come to know of bloggers who are beginners and those who have experience and are more than willing to help you build your blog.

2.Leaving Comments on Social Media Group Posts

Another great way to build your reputation is to get involved in social media groups. Social Media is a driving force when it comes to online marketing, and building a great reputation within them will be a great addition to leveraging blogging communities.

Let’s look at a couple of statistics in regards to the benefit of using Social Media:

Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest drive the most social media referral traffic back to websites. But YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn drive the most engaged traffic. (Source: Buffer)

I’m most active on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.

I get more referral traffic from Twitter and I get the most engaged traffic from Google+.

But one thing I like to point out is that whatever works for me may or may not work for you. You may get more engaged traffic from Facebook and more referral traffic from Google+. But whatever the case may be, being involved with the groups within these sites that have a lot of interaction will be a great benefit for you.

It would also be wise to be involved in interactive groups that have members you already interact with in the blogging communities I mentioned. This will make your online presence more cohesive and will make it convenient for your target audience to find you.

3. Sharing Blogs and Mentioning Authors

Sharing blogs on social media and mentioning the authors’ names to let them know you shared their blog posts is a great practice of building your reputation. Not only the authors notice, but also your target audience.

Here’s a great statistic on why people share posts:

94% of people who share posts do so because they think it might be helpful to others (Source: Adpushup)

My audience appreciates the content, I share with them on social media. From the type of content you share with your own target audience will also give them the feeling that you also care about their success.

You ever heard of the Law of Reciprocity where you do unto others as you would want them to do unto you?

This Law is the foundation of networking and building great relationships, which helps to strengthen your personal brand online.

4.Q&A Sites

One great goal for personal branding is to be the “Go To” person for specific problems, products, and services. This is what Authority is all about! And what better way to do this than to leverage Q&A Sites!

Check out these statistics on branding and what your audience expects from you.

48% of Americans expect brands to know them and help them discover new products or services that fit their needs. (Source: BOP Design)

80% of consumers said authenticity of content is the most influential factor in their decision to become a follower of a brand (Source: BOP Design)

65% of internet users see online search as the most trusted source of information about people and companies (Source: reputation x)

79% of consumers place equal weight on both online reviews and personal recommendations (Source: reputation x)

63% of consumers need to hear something at least three times before they believe it (Source: reputation x)

To put it in a nutshell, your target market wants consistency and social proof before they even trust you enough to make any business transaction with you.So, instead of trying to convince your target audience about your products and services, why not show them how valuable you are by being a part of Question and Answer sites.

One of the most popular ones is Quora.com!

I started using Quora about a year ago and I have reaped many rewards as far as generating more traffic and more followers. But Quora isn’t the only Q&A site that you can use. Here are some others that you may want to look into:

5.Guest Posting

There comes a time when you want to expose yourself to more traffic. When it comes to traffic, there are other blogs who may attract a similar target market as you do, but their target market may not know about your blog. This is why guest posting is a valuable free strategy you can add to your list of strategies. It’s a great way to network with other people within your niche, as well as collaborate with other bloggers where you can literally practice the Law Of Reciprocity and make it a 3 way win. You get your blog exposed, the blogger can also get his blog exposed to your target audience, and also the blogger’s audience get expose to you and your blog.

But there a few things you want to remember:

If the blogger has a guest post guideline, make sure that you follow it carefully. Make sure that you write a post related to the message of the blog. You want to write your best, invaluable post for the blogger. Leave a link back to your blog, or if permitted, to your landing page.

Read this guide to learn, why should you still do guest blogging?

6.Doing Expert Roundup Posts

As you’re building a great reputation and connecting with other bloggers, one wise thing you want to do is to create a spreadsheet of the contact information of each blogger.

One of the fastest, free ways to generate traffic is by doing expert roundup posts.

These are blog posts where you get the opinions, answers, strategies, etc. of each blogger that you connect with and put it all on one blog post.

I’m not going to lie, that although it may seem like an easy task, it can get quite tedious to do, but I tell you that it’s well worth the effort if you want to generate more traffic without using paid advertising.

In Conclusion

The goal of these free blogging strategies is to create a more cohesive, well-rounded marketing strategy that will bring the right market to your blog.

When you can build a great reputation using the above traffic driving strategies, then you’ll start to benefit from your online tools even more.

So, making the effort of being everywhere your target audience is and collaborating with other bloggers will give your reputation a huge boost.

How do you drive targeted traffic to your blog, do let us know through the comment box? 🙂